What is the true nature of time?

[Zephyr777]

Don't misunderstand me. I do not promote people filling this forum with asinine questions or ridiculous philosophical rhetoric. However, there can be no real education without at least some speculation. I agree with jtbell about not letting people rant openly about things they don't understand, or disagree with, but we shouldn't be so Nazi-istic in our approach. The rules allow for well formulated personal theories in this forum, as well as legitimate challenges to mainstream science. I am not suggesting the original poster of this thread is either. I was merely attempting to lower the tone of the discussion a little, which I seem to have done.
Complain if you like, but send your complaints to the moderators. Let the moderators decide what is appropriate, and what is not.

As far as the three-dimensions of time, you would not find a reference by doing a quick search on Google. Google is a helpful tool, but it's not complete. You may be correct, however, in assuming there have been no recently published (peer-reviewed) articles on the subject. It is a rather old idea that some physicists kick around from time to time, but few people have the ability to rightly apply it to any area of physics, and thus it is not a generally accepted concept.

Bobc2, I agree with you, as well. The comment was mostly meant for the originator of this post, who seems to be having much trouble understanding the current concept of time. Although most of the people in this forum don't SEEM to have trouble understanding it -- they know what it is, and are able to apply it proficiently in a rudimentary fashion -- there are still a great many people who cannot apply the concept in a more advanced fashion.

For instance, it is generally understood that distant galaxies are expanding faster at greater intervals. This is based largely on calculations of the galactic red-shift, which most of us are all-too familiar with. However, many people forget that the light we are looking at from those galaxies much farther away, also takes much longer to reach us. So, for example, when we look at the Messier 87 galaxy, we see the redshift of that particular galaxy as it was approximately 5,000 years ago. If we look at ESO 137-001, we will see the red-shift of that particular galaxy as it was approximately 260,000 years ago. If we see that the redshift for ESO 137-001 is greater than M87, we may then reasonably conclude that the expansion has actually been slowing with time, rather than increasing with distance.

 

[Dale]

The rules allow for well formulated personal theories in this forum, as well as legitimate challenges to mainstream science.

Where do they allow that?

 

[raynicolle]

Everything you have said is excellent, but you stopped too soon. You should also have said that your choice of co-ordinate system should not make any difference in how you analyze a situation, don't you agree?

Well, that's the problem. When we try to define the distance between to events, widely separated in distance and time, we will get different answers for every co-ordinate system we use and that's no fun.

So to solve this problem we use a new kind of vector that includes both the normal three-component vector for space and the normal scalar for time, and we call it a four-vector. Then we invent (or discover) a way to calculate a new "distance" called "interval" that is always the same, no matter which co-ordinate system we use to describe, characterize, or analyze any situation.

Does that make sense to you?

What if there is NO distance between events because all events occur in the "universal NOW"? Time is not like a river because events are always in the 'now'. Then there is no need for a dimension called 'time'. There is only need for a useful-but-imaginary measuring concept. Hey, maybe that is what the 4th dimension is?